More headlines: Hillary Clinton on Education

Buffalo teacher’s strike inappropriate; hope for negotiation

Q: Here in Buffalo, union teachers are illegally on strike at this moment. The school board is strapped for funds, and both parents and students are caught right in the middle. Do you support their current job action even though it’s illegal under New
York’s Taylor Law?

CLINTON: Well, I am hoping that they’re negotiating and will be back in the classroom full-time without any other problems. The children deserve that and we need to get education started this year. I’m very much committed to
doing everything I can to move the education agenda forward. And I do support the idea that the teachers should be working and their action against the Taylor Law is illegal, and I do not believe that that’s appropriate.

LAZIO: I am opposed to
teachers striking where it is against the law. In this case, it has been deemed illegal. They need to get back to the classroom, and we should put as our first priority, teaching our children.

Source: Clinton-Lazio debate, Buffalo NY
Sep 13, 2000

City schools are overcrowded and falling apart

Hillary Clinton assails [the current NYC] stewardship of public education. “I have been to schools where the ceiling plaster’s falling down, where corridors are barred off, where windows are broken, where children are going to class in hallways
and closets,” Clinton said. “I know that in many of our schools in this city, the overcrowding has gotten to such an extent that we don’t where we are going to put the children next.”

Source: Adam Nagourney, New York Times
Mar 12, 2000

Kids need decent schools to learn

How do we expect our children to be ready for the 21st century when we still have 19th century technology in our schools? There isn’t a more important obligation that we have as a community than
to provide the best possible conditions so that our teachers can teach and our children can learn.

Source: Remarks at PS 161 in Harlem, NYC
Sep 28, 1999

Hold kids to high standards, starting at home

First and foremost, we have to expect every single child to succeed and we have to hold every one of them to high academic standards. There should be no exceptions, no excuses, to our solemn commitment that
every child can learn; every child deserves to be challenged, to have their imaginations sparked. That is not just the task in our schools; it has to start in our homes with parents and family members who value education.

Source: Remarks to NEA in Orlando, Florida
Jul 5, 1999

Reduce size of schools; and modernize

We have to do more about the sizes of some of our schools-they have gotten too big and there are too many children who feel anonymous from the start of the school year to the end of it. We need to bring down the size of our schools, especially in
areas where there are a lot of other problems that have to be addressed. We need to do more with the schools within schools idea. And we have to provide more funds to modernize crumbling schools, and build more schools where schools are needed.

Source: Remarks to NEA in Orlando, Florida
Jul 5, 1999

Arkansas project: broaden experiences for children

Her pet project as Arkansas’ First Lady was educational reform, which was to grow into the signature of the entire Clinton reign. “We’ve got some really bright, talented students in this state; we’ve just got to build their self-esteem,” she said at the
time. While teaching at the state university, Hillary had been saddened by how limited the students’ experiences were. To “offer them more classes & broader exposure,” Hillary launched a summer program for gifted high school juniors.

Source: Hillary’s Choice by Gail Sheehy, p.130-131
Dec 9, 1999

Fight with Gore for public schools; no voucher “gimmicks”

[Gore] will make education his priority. I will fight with him; I will be by his side as we fix our public schools. I will be by his side as we fix crumbling schools, as we put more teachers in our classroom to lower class size,
as we improve the quality of education. We know that [education] is not the priority of the Bush-Giuliani team. The other team, they want to talk about gimmicks like vouchers.